Georgia’s opposition politicians have called for Mikheil Saakashvili’s resignation following his initiation and mishandling a war with Russia.

They voiced their discontent over the Georgian president’s decisions and management of the recent crisis in the region and called for early elections.

“Saakashvili bears political and moral responsibility for starting the war [with Russia] and for its catastrophic consequences. Saakashvili no longer holds either political or moral right to be the president of Georgia or commander-in-chief,” David Gamkredlidze, the head of the New Right opposition party said at a news conference in Tbilisi.

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“As a result of this defeat over a thousand of our citizens were killed, wounded and forcefully displaced; the Georgian army is disintegrated, disarmed and demoralized,” Gamkrdze said Wednesday.

He also added that the war had also “lessened” Georgia’s chance of entry to NATO, or of retaining sovereignty over the separatist enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

A d v e r t i s e m e n t

A day earlier opposition leader Shalva Natelashvili of the Labor party had also accused Saakashvili of unthinkingly turning Georgia into the victim of US-Russian rivalry.

Meanwhile over 80 prominent organizations and individuals wrote an open letter asking for an end to government war propaganda, while refusing to sign a government pledge of unity.

These outbursts mark a sharpening of attacks on Saakshvili’s failed and costly gambit to reassert control over breakaway South Ossetia – which led to war with Russia – and could signal a power struggle within the opposition.